Thank you for your question. There are many ways to rid ourselves of unwanted negative emotions but further to my response on energy therapies in one of my previous articles I thought it would be interesting to look at how we rid ourselves from negative emotions via energy psychology. There are other ways to deal with the same issue and as most people reading this will know, as a hypnotherapist/life coach myself I also use those techniques when addressing this problem. However, for the purposes of this article I am going to focus mainly on energy therapy.

How do we rid ourselves of negative emotions?

The basic factor that encapsulates energy psychology and all other meridian energy therapies is the fact that they base themselves on the belief that “All negative emotions are caused by a disruption in the body’s energy system.”

This disruption can be measured and is calibrated in units called SUD also known as Standard Units of Discomfort. Such a measurement system was first used in order to evaluate a therapeutic technique called systematic desensitisation as developed by Joseph Wolpe (1958), but they are now common place and used as a standard evaluative measure of the success of energy psychology treatments. The optimum read is Zero i.e no discomfort and this is completely achievable with this form of therapy.

Often client’s come in for treatment and they say that they want to lose weight or quit smoking but however hard they try they just cannot achieve their goal. This is called psychological reversal and can be described as when the subconscious mind does not perform as the conscious mind requires. For example the client who says they want to lose weight may have a secondary gain embedded in their subconscious that prevents them from carrying out their conscious will, perhaps their love of food, or a belief that thin people are unhappy or that thin people are unhealthy. Although these beliefs may not be based on objective facts and evidence, they will feel very real to the client and will hinder their attainment of the original goal.

These beliefs and or secondary gains will disrupt the body’s energy system, and as we saw in my previous article, they can be addressed with many of the energy psychologies available. However, I have chosen to look at EFT as devised by Gary Craig (who trained with Dr Callahan the brains behind thought Field Therapy). Gary Craig reduced TFT to make a simpler approach more accessible and applicable. Craig reduced the 361 meridian points down to 13 which are used in EFT with the first 12 being percussed no matter what the emotional upset followed by a 9 step Gamut on the 13th point.

An overview on the process I would use with a client if they came to me for a treatment in this area (if they did not want to go down the route of hypnosis) would be as follows:-

I would start with the Set up. The “Set-Up Protocol” refers to the process by which the psychological reversal (PR) is solved. It consists of finding one’s sore spot (most likely found on the right or left side of the chest). This point is a pressure point/reflex on the lymphatic system. The sorer the spot is an indication of how strong the psychological reversal. Once found the client would make an opening statement that resonates such as ‘I deeply and profoundly love and accept myself’. More often than not this will not feel comfortable for the client and we would work together on finding out how true each statement is on a scale of 1 to 10 and then re-evaluating after the percussion of all the points. Once the set up point has been calibrated the 12 step tapping routing can commence.

After completion of this the final stage is called the 9 Gamut Routine.

The 9 Gamut routine is carried out by continually tapping on the TH03 meridian point while following a 9 step routine slightly oversimplified this would be – eyes closed, eyes open, eyes down right, eyes down left, rotate eyes clockwise, rotate eyes anticlockwise, hum, count to five and hum again. Its purpose is to engage and balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain – creating activity and balance bilaterally will also increase the number of neuron firing in each hemisphere allowing communication as well as balance.

Once this has been achieved the original statement would be re-evaluated and the client would then see how they feel about the change. More often than not clients who are new to this type of therapy are surprised at how much emotion is let go by what appears on the surface as such a simple process. The great thing about tapping is that you can do it at home and in between sessions be improving each and every day.

I am pleased to be able to use this procedure in my treatments where necessary and when the client is interested in a different approach to the issue before them. If you have any further questions contact me through City Connect, leave a comment or ask a question through our Q+A page.